As you read this, some of your fellow Britons will be considering remortgaging to pay a utilities bill that demands a four-figure sum because their supplier confused imperial meter readings with metric. Except they won’t qualify for a loan because their credit rating has been wrecked by a phantom £5 default on a bank account they closed 10 years ago. And they will be unable to get the default rectified because the bank can’t get access to the account. And in any case, they have no phone to ring on since telecoms have yet to be installed on their year-old housing estate and their mobile service provider inadvertently gave their number to someone else.

It’s tempting to take the next flight out to escape the torment of corporate Britain, but before you book, be aware that paying for a ticket does not guarantee that you will be airborne. The pilot’s holiday rota might have been messed up, or a weird glitch in your travel agent’s computer might have printed your surname twice and invalidated your ticket or cancelled your booking without letting you know.

It’s holidays that have caused Your Problems readers the greatest grief this year. To be fair to the airlines, most of the readers did end up abroad – but not necessarily in the country they thought they were flying to or in the company of their luggage. Budget carriers do not like stumping up expenses when they leave you stranded. Most of all, they don’t like paying the compensation due for delayed and cancelled flights under EU regulations.

When you do reach the right airport, you face another regular grievance – car hire companies that cancel your booking (but not your payment) if you are late, and help themselves without warning to three-figure sums to repair invisible damage. All you need then is for your bank to decide that your holiday destination is on its list of dodgy places, that you are therefore probably a drugs baron and that your balance should be frozen without notice and your account closed.

Of course, the minute big business masters the meaning of customer service I will be out of a job. And I can’t say I don’t admire the enterprise some firms show in seeking money for nothing. It’s in tribute to them that I offer the following awards:

Most expensive cock-up

When MR of Manchester won a £500,000 payout from the NHS for disabilities caused by clinical negligence, Barclays decided it must have been ill-gotten and closed his two accounts with his money still in them. The court order confirming the award did not change its mind and MR was left with no access to funds for three months until the Observer intervened. Barclays, still insisting that it acted “appropriately”, was persuaded to reinstate the accounts and pay more than £9,000 in compensation.

Best contributions to homelessness

There’s no place like home – if it’s built by Harron Homes. When JU took possession of his new house in West Yorkshire it had everything – except for a window to fill the gaping hole in the bathroom wall, cavity wall insulation, level stairs or part of the garden he’d paid for. Oh, and the developer appeared to have run out of bricks when constructing the walls. He was lucky. Of the 23 readers who contacted the Observer about Harron, some were waiting to move in up to 12 months after exchanging contracts because their houses lacked basics such as roofs. Harron told the Observer that it was working hard to resolve “snagging” problems and that it never committed to fixed completion dates.

HD of Knaresborough wisely bought a house that already existed –it even had windows. Her mistake was to buy a repossession previously owned by a Lloyds customer. On moving day, she discovered that the purchase could not be completed because Lloyds had forgotten to send the former owner’s mortgage redemption certificate to the creditor who was selling the house. The family of four and their four dogs spent the next eight weeks camped in a succession of cabins at a holiday park, their clothes and possessions trapped in the removal vans and their savings vanishing on rent and storage costs. Lloyds only admitted a “processing error” when the Observer intervened, and reimbursed the family’s £15,500 in expenses, adding £6,000 for stress.

Opodo debited £2,300 rather than £30 from a customer’s account. Photograph: Chris Ridley/Alamy

Most expensive typo

RM of London realised he had mistyped his surname five minutes after booking flights with Travel Trolley. The agent demanded £110 to amend it, even though the tickets had not yet been issued. It explained £80 was required by the airline and £30 by it because the correction procedure “consumes more than five minutes”.

DM of East Renfrewshire didn’t notice that she’d mistaken a zero for an O when keying her car registration number into a car park ticket machine. The two are, after all, indistinguishable to the naked eye on licence plates. She discovered her mistake when she received a demand for £60. The car park management firm, Smart Parking, conceded on appeal that she had paid, but upped the charge to £160 and threatened her with court action unless she stumped up.

Top prize, however, should go to the travel agent Opodo. An operative typed an extra zero when applying a £230 booking amendment fee and £2,300 was debited from SB of London’s account. It mustered £30 to tide him over but only repaid the rest when the Observer intervened. It claimed the bank had rejected the refund.

Most creative dodge

When CM of London learned there would be an indefinite wait at the Ikea collection point for the £20 shower head he had ordered, he asked to cancel. He was told that would not be possible. He returned to the till and asked for his £20 back. That was not possible either. He was referred to the returns desk and told the wait was more than half an hour. So he emailed a refund request from home and was told that his card could only be credited if he made the long journey back to the store and rejoined the queue. In its contrition (after the Observer intervened) Ikea refunded him the £20, plus the £29 he had spent on other goods that day and sent a £30 gift voucher.

The bathroom firm Kohler refused to honour a lifetime guarantee sold with CF of Ipswich’s Kohler Daryl shower because, it said, it was invalidated by a company takeover. In fact, Kohler had acquired Daryl more than two years before the warranty was issued. When questioned by the Observer, Kohler apologised for being “unclear” and replaced the unit.

Most sensitive bereavement care

When AM of Glasgow informed Bank of Scotland of her partner’s death, it transferred their joint account into the deceased man’s name, locking her out of the associated benefits such as AA roadside assistance and travel insurance cover. A call to the bank’s bereavement service was aborted after 25 minutes on hold.

But its efforts are trumped by npower, which broke into a pensioner’s house to remove the meters despite having been informed a year previously that she had died. It then failed to show up for several appointments to reinstate the meters and accused the family of chasing compensation when they complained. Bowing to media pressure, it offered £970 compensation – then sent the late occupant a request to set up a direct debit.

TalkTalk allowed an identity thief to take over a customer’s TV and broadband account. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Best corporate logic

Should the winner be Barclays, which chased SC of Cambridge for an £849 debt on an account closed in 2002, then declared itself unable to discuss it because the account had been closed too long ago?

Or TalkTalk, which allowed an identity thief to take over CD of London’s TV and broadband account, then refused CD’s request that it cancel the fraudulent order because she was no longer the named account holder?

Biggest rip-off

A 90-year-old was charged £501 for calls to directory enquiries to find a number for her utility supplier. The number, operated by Telecoms2, charged a one-off fee of £15.98 plus £7.99 a minute. The reader received a refund after the Observer got in touch.

Rudest customer service

HM of London questioned the viability of a plug plant from Scentedgeraniums.co.uk and was told by the owners that they were “irritated in the extreme” to be asked such a thing. She got off lightly: AC of Wiltshire was banned from shopping with the company after querying the whereabouts of an order placed two months previously.

•If you would like to nominate a company for a specific prize, please contact me (your.problems@observer.co.uk), and keep your letters coming in. If we can’t change poor customer services we can at least help shame them.